


Poor, Life Choices

by CaptainJimothyCarter



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fics [36]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Awesome Peggy Carter, Defensive Steve Rogers, Drabble, F/M, Gen, Multiples, Pregnant Peggy, Steve works at the SSR, no real ending, that's HIS wife, tumblr drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26995585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainJimothyCarter/pseuds/CaptainJimothyCarter
Summary: Peggy's never one to really allow what other's say get to her. She wouldn't be where she is today if she did, but that doesn't mean she can stop her husband from reacting when what they say about her gets to him.And really, privately, Ms. Fry deserves it.
Relationships: Chester Phillips & Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter & Chester Phillips & Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Series: Tumblr Prompt Fics [36]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952281
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51





	Poor, Life Choices

The day that her wedding ring became too small for her swollen fingers was a day Peggy didn’t like to remember. It was a simple gold wedding band with sapphire blue stones right dab in the middle. It was elegant, yet simple, and everything Peggy could’ve wanted. She didn’t care much for jewelry and didn’t care if Steve asked her to marry her with just a piece of twine or even nothing in his hand.

She would’ve said yes either way.

It was Steve who suggested they put it on a chain, so she could still have it near her while at work. It felt odd not having it on her hand, missing the weight of it, but she felt grateful for her fingers to be free while she poured over the stacks of files the SSR boys kept dropping off thanks to officially being taken off of field missions by no more than Phillips himself.

The man had come down from DC to discuss things with her, taking over as Chief of their simple office, and causing much ruckus and rifling through the workplace. Rumors of the SSR being disbanded started to take place, rumors Peggy ignored.

Agents like Thompson and Sousa got to see first hand how just Colonel Phillips and Agent Carter got alone. Meaning there were many shouting matches between them, at one point Peggy had threatened to throw Phillips out of the office himself. The entire office had sat and watched their fight go down, making bets on when Carter was going to be sacked or not until Phillips broke out into a rare smile and laughed at her.

It was odd, to see such a chiseled and grave man from all he’s witnessed to laugh at her like that. And for Carter not to get angry and laugh right back.

There were many rumors on favoritism and Peggy didn’t bother to shoot them down. Phillips did favor her but not for what laid between her legs, for the fact she did her damn job, and two times as better as any seasoned agent. 

Of course, none of them would believe that.

“Go home,” Phillips sighed at her for an unkempt time that day. He stood in front of her desk, wafting a freshly brewed cup of coffee in her face.

Peggy scowled at him, her eyes narrowed. She knew she looked like crap. Morning sickness meant she’d spent a good portion of the daily debriefing in the toilet and had to be caught up by Rose. Her face was pale and sheen with sweat, her normally poised hair was done in a hasty bun on the nape of her neck to keep it out of the way.

And her clothes, something so simple and precious to her, that made the point of the matter that she was a woman and she wasn’t going to let any others treat her different. Due to being heavily pregnant with what the doctor assumed were multiples, she’d been forced to adjust many of her outfits. Ana had struggled to adapt so quickly too, but even then she couldn’t keep up.

Steve, her, and even Howard had suspicions on if this was multiples or because of the serum.

Point is, Peggy was still cursing Steve’s name with the infant hit the right spot on her bladder.

She’d been forced to wear a hastily put-together outfit that did nothing for her figure and the lack of either time or ability to keep up her appearance showed.

And what really showed as her face turned a shade of green from the coffee wafting in her face, was her annoyance at Phillips. He knew one of her triggering scents was coffee. It had been mostly banned from the bullpen.

He’d been trying to get her to go home all morning, each time she ignored him.

“I’m afraid I can’t,” she mused, leaning far back as her seat allowed. “No one else is here to do the paperwork with the 084 in Manhattan. Get that out of my face.”

She brushed his hand out of the way and Phillips smirked around the mug. “This?” He waved it under her nose and Peggy’s lips pursed to prevent herself from upchucking what little breakfast she could keep down. “It’s just coffee, Carter. Besides, Thompson’s on the way back, he can handle the paperwork. You’re too sick to be here.”

“With all due respect, sir, I feel perfectly fine.” The humph from him said otherwise. “I do. I can handle doing my job. Especially if Thompson is going to take over, I assume you don’t want these properly filled out, do you? Or legible.”

“Fine isn’t upchucking in the communal toilet loud enough that we can all hear it. You’re pregnant, Peggy. There’s more than just you to worry about.” He set the coffee on her desk and leaned over, not threatening her space. He knew how quick she could move, pregnant or not, and didn’t desire his own beverage in his face. “I already called Rogers - he’s on the way to come pick you up. As of today, you’re on maternity leave. We can converse over the phone the finer details of what that entails, plus your ideas later.”

Peggy’s heart sunk straight to her stomach. Maternity leave. She’d avoided it long as she could, despite how she needed the rest, wanted the rest. She didn’t need this used against her what so ever by the SSR boys when she came back. 

“My ideas can be discussed as normal after office hours.”

“For Christ Sake, Carter!” Phillips groaned and rolled his eyes. “I can see why you and Rogers make a good pair - you’re both too stubborn for your own good. We will discuss the installments later.”

The hard look in his eyes told Peggy she wasn’t winning this and part of her, a large part of her actually didn’t want to fight this either. Phillips had taken over for a reason - a big reason, long before Peggy had revealed she was pregnant. This had been planned for so long, between them, and taking the first few steps carefully would be crucial to them.

“Traitor,” she grumbled, seeing the entrance door opened and a familiar broad figure standing there, no doubt with a cup of ginger tea.

Steve knew her so well.

“Never been so glad to be called a traitor in my life. Rogers, get your wife, and take her home. Make sure she stays there. If you’re so back in this office without my permission before that little squirt is born, Carter, there will be hell to pay.”

With that being said, Peggy found herself being lead down the exit elevator, sipping on the tea. She avoided Steve’s smugged look.

“Told you so,” he mused, wrapping her in one of his larger coats as they braced the cold wind outside. The tea did nothing to warm her up, but plenty of her belly as he sat her in the passenger seat. She’d long have to give up the ability to drive with her belly.

“Say that again and you’ll be sleeping on the couch. I don’t need to hear it,” Peggy snapped, instantly regretting it at Steve’s pouting look. “I’m sorry, darling, I am just irritated.”

“I know you are.” His hand slid over hers and squeezed before he started the car. “Phillips is just worried, hence I was taken off of duty with the Commandos a while back. He wants me near you in case something happened. Least this way you can relax and slowly plan the aspects of SHIELD.”

Peggy made a noise in the back of the throat, agreeing with Steve. Her eyes falling to the snow and ice outside the window.

“We need to stop at the store and get groceries if we’re to be inside for so long.”

If Steve disagreed, he said nothing as he made a turn to head to the nearest store.

Insisting she could walk, Peggy brushed off Steve’s concerned hand and held her own to her belly when there were kicking and movement. 

She could feel Steve’s eyes on them as they walked the aisles, commenting on the price of peanut butter or bread. The smell of the fish Steve was looking at made her naughtius and this time, unavoidable urge to get sick, having her running to the bathroom. 

“I’m getting some more ginger,” Steve commented when Peggy emerged, using the end of his sleeve to clean some of the sweat from her face. “And licorice. Don’t make that face, it’s good for you.”

“It’s disgusting, is what it is, but I’ll take anything at this point,” she sighed, rubbing over her belly again. “You go do that and I’ll get the tea and sugar.”

At least watching Steve walk away left Peggy with a view that reminded her as to how she got pregnant in the first place.

The last she expected to find when she waddled down the aisle, Steve having taken the cart, was a familiar face. The last familiar face she wanted to see. Ms. Fry.

She hadn’t seen her since she’d told the old coon that she was leaving the Griffith and the woman had gone on some bizarre tantrum about Peggy ruining her life, hanging around men who would do nothing but bring her down, needed to settle down, and find a husband, to train herself to do this and that. And how she was going nowhere, the same with Angie…  
  
It made Peggy want to roll her eyes and avoid the woman but she wanted the tea and to go home and put her damn feet up.

The second she was in the aisle, the woman spotted her. Eyes lit up and trained on her.

“What do we have here?” Her voice was downright sneering and Peggy didn’t miss it as she turned to look at her.

“Hello to you too, Ms. Fry. I’m surprised you remember me,” Peggy replied cooly. 

“I don’t forget the rift raft rulebreaking ones, darling. I always remember their faces.” The term darling was anything but endearing. “I see I was right.”

“About what?” When the woman just looked down at her hand on her belly and back up at Peggy with that grin, the brunette scoffed.

“Still unladylike as ever, I see. Well, which one was it?” When Peggy didn’t respond and just raised a brow, the woman scoffed. “Which one? Whose the unknown father of your child? Or do you just not know and slept around with far too many of those agents you work with?”

Before Peggy could respond, Ms. Fry seemed to be on that tantrum again, “You always did make the poor life choices. Always going out, past hours, or before hours. Always stealing food for the other residents who never bothered to even show up for mealtime. You were always running around, flirting and flaunting with men. A woman doesn’t do that! Now look at you, not even having the decency to marry one of the fellas that knocked you up. You’ve made some poor life choices here, dolly and they’re going to bite you in the can. And I suppose that while you’re here, buying the cheaper version of that tea, that you’ve lost your job too. No one is going to hire a pregnant lass and certainly not hire a single mother. Your best bet is to drop that kid off at the orphanage and to marry the first fella who makes eye contact with you. That poor kid…”

Peggy was seeing red, her chest aching. She didn’t even know when to start, where to start, with what to counter. To yell at this old hag to prove how wrong she was.

Now Peggy never considered herself a damsel in distress. She never needed to be saved, she could handle herself perfectly fine but just this once, she was glad to see Steve strutting down the aisle behind them. She knew that look, had seen it a hundred times during the war, and a hundred times after during his exports with the Commandos or running strategics for the SSR.

The set jawline, the determined look in his eyes, the fierce look that followed after. The way his shoulders were set back and his knuckles turning white around the cart, despite he’d never dare to hurt someone. Even if the thought just barely crossed his mind in a fit of blind anger that came when to defending his wife.

He said nothing to Ms. Fry, even nothing to Peggy. Dropping the cart so it hit the floor, the contents jostling inside. He cupped the small of Peggy’s back before dipping her down for a long and hearty kiss that reminded the brunette why she loved the man in the first place.

Her hand laid on his chest and felt his strong heartbeat underneath, feeling his lips smile against hers as she was settled on her feet. Her necklace with her wedding band on it had come out of the contents of her shirt and laid right in the open.

“Good afternoon to you too, Ms. Fry,” Steve mused as if they hadn’t just made out in front of her. “I see you’re still doing just as lovely. I’m afraid I never got to introduce myself, by the time I was found, and set for duty, Miss Carter and I had eloped and moved in together.” 

He didn’t offer his hand to her, just a shit-eating grin as he grabbed at their basket. The woman was still staring at them, blinking slowly as if to put this all together.

“You see, you’re wrong on many accounts. Peggy does what in the hell she wants, when she wants because she wants to. No one can control her. Not her mother, not me, and certainly not you. Those ideas she puts in the other girl’s head at your home? Those were there, to begin with. You’d be surprised what goes on under your nose,” Steve snorts. “Top it off. The only bad choice in life Peggy has ever made was perhaps to marry me.”

Peggy gently smacked his chest, drawing herself out of her thoughts. “It was not. I love you, darling.”

Steve caught her hand and kissed it. “I love you too.” He looked back at Ms Fry and shrugged. “You were lucky to have Peggy under your roof for the short time you did and I’m lucky I was able to get her back. So, no you’re wrong. She hasn’t been knocked by any of those Agents, just me. We’re expecting our first in an already paid off home, one I’ve been remodeling while Peggy still worked. She’s only just starting maternity leave today, actually. We just came by to pick up a few essentials.”

He waved the basket in her face with a small laugh. “So Peggy’s ‘bad choices’ in life had actually turned around great for her. She has a promising career, a loving husband, and a household full of kids, and love. In fact, not that it’s your business, but Peggy will actually be working while I stay at home to take care of the children. Perhaps not to your ideals of traditionalism but…” 

Steve shrugged before taking Peggy’s arm. Before either could say goodbye, they left. He plopped the tea box from Peggy’s fingers and tossed it into the cart. 

“And the only reason you did get the cheap box was that the others give you a headache,” Steve scoffed, once they’d unloaded the groceries at the house. He watched Peggy from across the way, her feet settled into a bucket of warm water, with a towel around the back of her neck, her hand cradling her belly. 

Peggy looked up from across the way and into their kitchen, seeing Steve staring at her from across the breakfast nook. “How long do you think it’ll be until she figures out you’re Captain America?”

Steve snorted as he brought his wife her cup of ginger tea and sat down with a book in his lap beside her. He’d been reading it to her for the past week. “With luck, she’s still standing in the aisle, looking confused.”


End file.
